Why I Don't Care About Calories

In high school, when I first began to discover my passion for health and nutrition, I held onto the "calories in, calories out" motto that we hear from lots of health professionals. When someone is trying to lose weight, everyone tells them to monitor calories, reduce calories, count calories, it's all about calories, calories, calories. It becomes something that can easily be obsessed over, and cause people to lose sight of true nutrition. This is exactly what happened to me when I started to become interested in nutrition and healthy eating in general. I used to count my calories like many people do, using an app on my phone. I didn't really think much about nutrients, vitamins, or even macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, fat). All I cared about was the calories I consumed each day. This can become really dangerous if you're trying to eat a well-balanced diet, or even a healthier diet in general. Many people (including my former self) think that eating fewer calories, regardless of the type of food is the way to weight loss, weight maintenance and a general healthier body. Eating fewer calories may cause initial weight loss, but definitely not a good long term approach to weight loss/maintenance. If calories are the main priority, actual nutrition can be forgotten about and "healthy eating" can just turn into calorie restriction.

When you restrict calories, specifically below 1200 calories/day, your body goes into starvation mode. If your body goes into starvation mode, it can hold onto everything you eat and lead to weight gain. Also, this type of "dieting" can really mess up your metabolism. Any diet that is less than 1600 calories is just a bad idea in my opinion. Calorie restriction can lead to binge eating (consuming a lot of food at one time) and just an unhappy mood. Trust me, I've been there, done that and it's not fun at all. I see so many "diets" that promote eating less than 1500 calories per day, and it makes me so sad to see people try them and ultimately fail because of the calorie/nutrient deprivation. These types of "diets" cause the yo-yo effect that many people experience when trying to get healthy and eat better.

I have two really big problems with calorie restricting, and calorie counting in general:

Just an orange and banana for lunch?!?!

One is the fact that low-calorie diets are almost impossible to maintain long term. When we are on low-calorie diets, or restricting calories our bodies crave calories and ultimately crave not very healthy foods. This can lead to the return of an unhealthy lifestyle/diet and completely throwing away the mindset of eating healthy. When people think healthy eating, some think starving, and being hungry all the time, but the thing I love about eating a plant-based vegan diet is the ability to eat as much food as I care for, and not worry about calories. When eating plant-based, specifically a low fat high carbohydrate, calories are all coming from good sources so there is no need to worry about calories. Many people ask me about cravings, and if I ever crave animal products or unhealthy food in general. The answer is no! I no longer have cravings for unhealthy food (cheese, eggs, meat, fried foods, etc.) because I eat an abundance of plant-based calories and nutrients, so I never feel deprived or hungry for unhealthy foods that I used to love.

My other big problem with calorie restricting and counting calories is the loss of hunger cues. One thing that really gets lost when people start eating low-calorie is the ability to identify hunger and satiation. If calories are the only thing you're concerned about, true hunger and satisfaction gets pushed to the side. Another thing I've learned from letting go of the "calories in, calories out" mindset is to listen to my body. When I'm hungry, I eat and when I'm full, I stop. This type of eating can really get lost when following a low-calorie diet because meals tend to be planned, measured, and portioned throughout the day. This is a very unnatural way of eating and can make your mind stop listening to your body's natural hunger cues.

Eat like Freelee the Banana Girl
(look her up on Youtube!)

Getting rid of the obsession with calories was one of the best things that's ever happened to me in my health/food journey. Eating should emphasize abundance and happiness, not restriction and the feeling of deprivation. When researching a plant-based vegan diet/lifestyle I saw the amount of food that people living this way were eating. Increasing calories were emphasized, and promoted in a way that I had never seen before and it opened my eyes to the fact that our bodies need lots of calories. 
When I began eating a plant-based diet, calories became completely irrelevant. It took me a few months to really begin to let go of the "calories in, calories out" mentality and ever since I was able to let that go, I haven't looked back once. It is so freeing to know that whatever I'm putting into my body is doing my body well, and calories really don't even matter. The reason why a plant-based lifestyle works is the increased intake of not just calories, but food in general. Eating is encouraged, calorie counting is only necessary to make sure you're getting enough calories, not to see how few calories you've eaten each day. The more plant-based calories, the more nutrients/energy you're getting. Most plant-based vegans eat close to 2800 calories a day, and are thriving.

FullyRaw Kristina's lunch

Nutrients are more important to me, not calories, the ingredients in a food item are more important to me than calories, and eating as much food as my body asks for is more important than staying below a caloric limit everyday. After several years of calorie restriction, my body's metabolism is still healing. I wish that I hadn't spent so long caring about calories because in the end when you're eating good foods, they don't matter. That's why encourage people to eat a plant-based vegan diet, because you can essentially eat as much as you care for. Calories are the last thing you have to worry about. Putting good food in your body, and listening to what your body is telling you is more important than calories, and that's why calories just don't matter.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Hummus is a food that I typically buy pre-made. In my mind it's a lot cheaper, and quicker to just buy it already made. But recently, I've tried to steer away from pre-made/convenience foods and put more effort and love into the food that I am eating. By doing this, I came up with this yummy hummus recipe that is actually much cheaper than pre-made and takes less than 20 minutes to whip up. Also, by making your own you can control what you put in your hummus. Most store bought hummus has preservatives and is high in oil.

The red peppers can definitely be left out, and the flavor can be changed to whatever you'd like. Add more garlic if you would like a more garlic heavy hummus, add cilantro and lime for a Mexican inspired hummus, or different spices to create whatever kind of hummus your hummus loving heart desires! 

Most hummus recipes call for tahini which is similar to peanut butter but made with sesame seeds. This ingredient is pretty expensive, so I have found that just using raw sunflower seeds tends to take on the tahini flavor.

All you need for this recipe is the list of ingredients below and a blender or food processor. This makes about 2 cups of hummus, so it'll last for up to a week and is perfect for dipping any type of vegetables or chips in, spreading on toast, or putting in a wrap, the possibilities are endless!

Ingredients: 
1 can garbanzo beans (rinsed)

1 (12 or16 oz) jar roasted red peppers (rinsed)

1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds

1 lemon (juiced)

1 Tbsp. dijon mustard

2 Tbsp. raw apple cider vinegar

2 cloves garlic (mashed)

1 tsp. salt 

2 tsp. pepper

1 Tbsp. cumin

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Store in an air-tight container for up to two weeks.

 

My Experience Living Off Food Stamps

I am currently taking a Community Nutrition class for my undergraduate major. In this class we learn about the nutrition needs in a community. We have recently been covering food insecurity, as well as the government, state, and local programs/agencies that help with the huge population of people that are food insecure. As part of our course, we are required to participate in the SNAP Challenge. The SNAP challenge is essentially living off of food stamps. We are only required to participate in the challenge for three days. In these three days, we were only allowed to eat off of $4.10/day totaling $12.30 for the entire three days. We were not allowed to eat any food that we already had, or accept food from anyone.

Me and one of my friends in my class decided that we would put our money together, and split everything. We went to Harris Teeter to buy our groceries, and spent quite a lot of time in the store searching for good deals, and comparing prices. We also had to keep track of how much everything was going to be, so that we didn't have to put anything back at the register. After nearly an hour, we decided we had gotten everything we needed and just hoped that we had done all the math correctly. As the cashier was scanning all our items, we were anxiously watching the total get closer and closer to our budget of  $24.60. Finally, the cashier said, "and your total is $24.59," we were ONE PENNY under budget. We couldn't hide our excitement, we did it! Now, the hard part was going to be eating only that food for the next three days. Both of us had a busy week ahead of us, including our first exam of the semester.

Our combined food ended up looking like not as much once we started dividing everything up, but we still had lots of confidence in our food choice decisions. We tried to choose foods that were filling, and that had a lot of bulk/fiber to keep us feeling full. But we also "splurged" on some luxury foods like avocados and coffee.

This is what I ended up with:
4 bananas
2 apples
5 stalks of celery
8 carrots
1/2 bunch of kale
5 Tbsp. peanut butter
3 sweet potatoes
1 avocado
1 can black beans
1 can garbanzo beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 package of brown rice
4 cups oats
1/2 tin of coffee

Day One:
On the first day I woke up with an intense migraine, one of those migraines that are so bad it makes you nauseous. This happens to me maybe once or twice a year, and for some reason it just had to be on the first day of the SNAP challenge. I decided to spend most of the day in bed, thankfully my one class was cancelled and it was snowing/blizzarding too bad for me to drive anywhere. This migraine was unfortunately a blessing in disguise, because all I felt like eating was bananas and oatmeal; two of the foods that I got the most of. For breakfast I had one banana, and 1 cup of oats with a teaspoon of peanut butter. That was enough for my stomach to handle until later in the afternoon when I woke up from a long nap and had another bowl of oats with a banana and an apple. After my migraine started to fade away, I knew I needed to eat some more food, so I roasted one of my sweet potatoes, paired it with some rice and enjoyed that for dinner. Later that night I ate some celery as well, hoping that I would feel much better in the morning and be able to eat a lot more.

Day Two:
Day two was much better than day one. I woke up with no migraine, and ready to start a new day on the SNAP challenge feeling much more like myself. The night before I had planned out exactly what I was going to eat, and even felt good enough (or maybe it was an excuse to not study for my test) to cook a Mexican dish with my black beans, tomatoes, rice, and kale and whip up some hummus with my garbanzo beans. Those two things were on my menu for day two of the challenge. I woke up and was pretty hungry, especially for my oatmeal and coffee. Oatmeal is something I have almost every morning, so I'm definitely used to it. I typically put flax seeds, almond milk, and pumpkin seeds in my oats so on the challenge I've definitely been missing all of the extra little things I usually include in my dishes. So for breakfast, I had 1 cup of dried oats made with water, and a banana, cinnamon, and a tablespoon of peanut butter all mixed in. I paired that with a strong cup of French pressed coffee, and I was good to go.

I had three classes following breakfast, so I decided to pack myself one of my apples, about two tablespoons of hummus, three carrots, and two stalks of celery. I definitely underestimated my hunger during those next four hours, because all of those snacks did not fill me up at all (even though I tried to eat every last bit of the apple, I think I may have eaten a seed by mistake!). I wasn't lightheaded or anything, but my stomach was definitely grumbling most of the afternoon. But I knew I had a big bowl of of my Mexican dish I had made waiting for me at home. I also still had two big sweet potatoes, so I could enjoy one of those as well.
As soon as I got home I made a big plate of the rice, beans, kale, and tomato dish I had made, topped it off with some celery leaves and avocado and I was in heaven. It looked pretty delicious if I do say so myself. I think one thing I've learned in the challenge is to enjoy the little things, one being making food feel/look good. I decided to use some of the celery leaves not only for it's nutrients, but also for it's color and crunch. Because the dish was rather bland, I knew the celery leaves would give it some freshness, which it definitely did. I ate my dinner around 5:30, so by 7:00 I was hungry once again. I think this has been the biggest struggle for me, because I don't really eat meals but instead snacks throughout the day. I've been having to learn to make things last, and to eat small bits of food instead of eating it all at once. So instead of having the sweet potato with the Mexican dish, I decided to wait and eat it later so I would feel like I was eating more food. I also had a lab report I had to write, so I decided to fix a cup of coffee to not only keep me a little more satiated, but also to keep me awake.

Day Three:
Day three went about the same as day two. The last day seemed to last forever though, all I could think about was going grocery shopping and stocking back up on all my favorite foods that I've missed. I ate about all the same foods on day three as I did on day two. I think that was the most challenging part of the challenge, was eating the same thing over and over again. It was definitely difficult to crave something, and not be able to eat it. I like to eat what I crave, and feel like my body needs rather than just eat something because it's on the "menu" for the day. In the three days I really missed my fresh fruit. Fruit is a huge part of my diet, so only having five bananas and two apples as my fruit for three days was very difficult.

Overall Experience:
My overall experience with the SNAP challenge was about what I expected. I really got a grasp at what it feels like to be limited on what I can buy, eat, and cook. While on the challenge I ate foods that I typically would eat, but just on a smaller scale. Some people may ask, if I could eat healthily on a SNAP budget, why can't everyone? Why is obesity and food insecurity such a common occurrence?

 Well there are many reasons for why it is difficult for SNAP recipients to eat healthily on food stamps but there are two main reasons I want to address. One is food deserts, or places where affordable, fresh, and healthy foods are difficult to obtain. In our class we've learned about some SNAP recipients may have to travel (by their own car, bus, train, subway, or by foot) two hours round trip to have access to fresh foods. This is a mind blowing fact, because most of us take driving five minutes to the grocery store for granted, myself included. This challenge would've been ten times more difficult if I had no access to fresh food, or even healthy foods. Another reason is lack of education. Not only have I done lots of self-educating about nutrition, but I am a nutrition major in college, so I have a basic understanding about healthy eating and nutrient intake. But most people don't have that kind of understanding about nutrition. This makes it difficult to shop healthily and buy healthy foods on such a small budget. Health is not the number one priority to a lot of people on SNAP, they just need food, and to stay under budget. 

If you are at all interested in food insecurity, or food deserts, check out the documentary A Place At The Table (on Netflix). This documentary makes you see first had what millions of people who are food insecure go through every single day. It definitely makes you rethink a lot of what we take for granted. It also shows that this is happening in OUR country, in OUR backyards. This should NOT be happening in America, the country that is known as being the richest country in the world. The sad part of all of this is how big the problem is, because money and politics exists, this problem unfortunately may never be solved.